I finished this painting of a girl sitting in a chair, reading. I never know when these figures are going to make an appearance in my studio. Sometimes several months go by without even a hint of their presence, then boom! A reader or an angel or a muse presents herself.
I get a little bit nervous when a painting comes along that just doesn’t seem to quite fit with the others. In time, though, over the several months it takes to prepare, the show evolves and becomes something different from what I thought it would be when I started. A Boise painter that I admire, Charles Gill, reminded me of a quote from Richard Diebenkorn: “I can never accomplish what I want—only what I would have wanted had I thought of it beforehand.”
I’m learning to release control over the process and find myself allowing a theme to take shape on its own.
